Not Becoming My Mother by Ruth Reichl

I've read all of Ruth Reichl's books on her life as a restaurant critic and food editor. But this book is a little different: It's a tiny little tome that honors her mother.

Reichl explains that her mother Miriam gave the best examples in opposition - what NOT to do, rather than what TO do. While Reichl spent most of her life telling entertaining "Mim Tales" of her mother's outrageous behaviors, it was after her mother's death and the retrospect found in reading her mother's letters that Reichl finds the woman behind the characture.

It's a touching, sensitive book. Reichl probes and re-discovers her relationship with her mother through her writing, and it's the kind of book that will make you re-analyze some of your own relationships.

How honestly do we see the people we're closest to?